Thrustmaster cougar gimbal cage sheared.
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I bought a mint condition USB TMC HOTAS and have got a few months into learning Bms 4.33.
But the other day the aileon movement let go and its terminal. The castings have sheared in two places.So my question is, with a broken joystick, now what?
I’ve looked at the cnc machined replacement parts, but am I just better off biting the bullet and getting the Real sim FSSB? Or I buy the A-10 stick and use it with the F-16 throttle (perhaps with the TuSBA)
It’s hard to gauge. I assume that the main advantage, apart from being truer to the real f-16, is that you get all new internals and another break down is much less likely.
Views?
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If money is no object - get the FSSB R1 or R2
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James,
You sheared off a new Cougar’s metal gimbals cage? Wow that takes some serious yanking and banking strength, unless it was a rare case of a flawed casting. You might be what is called a kenetic pilot (those that honk on the stick hard).
If you are in fact a kenetic pilot, then a fly by wire static (i.e. virtually non-moving) force transducer driven Cougar with either the FCC3 or FSSB wouldn’t be your flight style. Kenetic pilots like to put energy into their control sticks and have their a sense of where the control surfaces are by the biofeedback of the amount of positional displacement of the stick relative to their body. A force stick doesn’t give this feedback.
So for a kenetic pilot, id recommend:
1. Stick to a positional stick that you can slap around. Not a static force stick mod.
2. There are no replacement gimbals from TM Support for the Cougar afaik, so you would have get another used stick
3. A new Warthog (stock and unmodded to be a force stick) is a positional stick with a hall sensors, no potentiometers. These can be bought separately new. Then either use your broken Cougar stick base as the TQS USB connection to your PC, or buy a TUSBA-R2 and connect the TQS directly to your PC via USB without the Cougar stick base.But if you are not a stick throwing kenetic pilot, but instead a finesse pilot who had bad luck with a faulty Cougar gimbal, then you can also consider:
4. Vipercore’s FCC3 force controlled Cougar mod
5. Realsimulator’s FSSB force controlled Cougar mod
Both are equal accuracy and quality. (I own both) -
Get the FSSB, without a shadow of a doubt. That’s your best investment, your flying will improve dramatically in BMS and they’re built to last. It’s also very easy to install.
Buying the Warthog is a more expensive option, because you’re then into additional costs (I’d still replace it’s stick’s gimbal system with a force sensor mod and you’ll want a TUSBA.) However if you’ve got the finances, that’s an interesting option, and you can always use the Warthog throttle as an extra source of switches for BMS … always handy. -
…could give these 3D printed parts a try, just to try. Shame he doesn’t offer them in metal, which this printing house can do…but I imagine they’d cost too much.
http://www.shapeways.com/product/KTM9G6PGC/cougar-1?optionId=61311029&li=marketplace
http://www.shapeways.com/product/TZKFUHE2L/cougar-2?optionId=61311346&li=marketplace
http://www.shapeways.com/product/T5XTBE6NH/cougar-3?optionId=61311101&li=marketplace
http://www.shapeways.com/product/7X4SAB5N7/cougar-4?optionId=61311382&li=marketplace
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Amazing what can be done now with 3D printing. Still the full gimbals set which is a Uber Nxt spring and gimbals design, is $90. You can get a used stick for that and use its parts. The upside is the plastic uber Nxt replacement can be upgraded to hall sensors. Note that Milesd has a stock gimbals hall sensor kit to replace the original pots. So many options
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Hi, thanks for the input.
No i haven’t miss treated the joystick. Perhaps it was poorly repaired and hence the ebay sale. What I ended up going was simply making a piece that fits over the damaged part and epoxy and bolting the two together. It works the same as the original.
No elegant, not pretty but the same function with center slop as it had before it broke. -
Thanks everyone.
I will go for some force feed back next time, finances allowing. In the mean time I simply made a brace from a bit f 3/8" Aluminium. I made a slot fractionally larger than the original, threaded my new part and epoxied it on the inside. I bored a clearance holes in the original casting, and pulled the two together with some 3mm bolts. You can clearly see the fracture in the original casting in this photo as well. -
Well done. SD is a fine city BTW. I was there for a few days in 2012 I think it was. Got a nice tour of the the base on Coronado Island thanks a to a kind friend I met through Falcon. Was really cool seeing the all of the F-18s up close.
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…could give these 3D printed parts a try, just to try. Shame he doesn’t offer them in metal, which this printing house can do…but I imagine they’d cost too much.
http://www.shapeways.com/product/KTM9G6PGC/cougar-1?optionId=61311029&li=marketplace
http://www.shapeways.com/product/TZKFUHE2L/cougar-2?optionId=61311346&li=marketplace
http://www.shapeways.com/product/T5XTBE6NH/cougar-3?optionId=61311101&li=marketplace
http://www.shapeways.com/product/7X4SAB5N7/cougar-4?optionId=61311382&li=marketplace
“Strong and flexible”. Well which one is it? I’d hate for them to flex as that would just translate is slop which I’m assuming this mod is aiming to eradicate.
Also, all parts added together come to ~£70. Unless it is very good and not prone to developing slop, I’d much rather put that £70 towards an FSSB, personally.
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“Strong and flexible”. Well which one is it? I’d hate for them to flex as that would just translate is slop which I’m assuming this mod is aiming to eradicate.
Also, all parts added together come to ~£70. Unless it is very good and not prone to developing slop, I’d much rather put that £70 towards an FSSB, personally.
Yeap good point. But u loose the element of accomplishing such alone. And the 70 can be better used.
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If you’ve done any study in metallurgy (or worked in a forge…) there’s a crossing point between “tough” and “brittle”. “Tough” equates to “strong” as “flexible” equates to “brittle”. The base metal parts in the Cougar gimbals are both malleable and brittle - which is why they both wear and break at rate faster than we’d like.
The 3D printed plastic parts may be a sizable improvement, though I think you’d need to relax the spring forces in the gimbal works to get some real life out of them - or add metal bushings at the spring points. But I like the idea of them as replacements…evolution in progress.
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If you’ve done any study in metallurgy (or worked in a forge…) there’s a crossing point between “tough” and “brittle”. “Tough” equates to “strong” as “flexible” equates to “brittle”. The base metal parts in the Cougar gimbals are both malleable and brittle - which is why they both wear and break at rate faster than we’d like.
The 3D printed plastic parts may be a sizable improvement, though I think you’d need to relax the spring forces in the gimbal works to get some real life out of them - or add metal bushings at the spring points. But I like the idea of them as replacements…evolution in progress.
Interesting, thanks. The springs in the cougar are far too stiff IMO anyway.
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Ha !
I’m actually a Brit living in SD. I went to Sheffield Uni and once went on out the Pizz in Newcastle.
You were lucky to get on NAS Coronado. I actually came here because I literally switched flight schools because I found out Top Gun was filmed at Miramar-SD. Lots of things are still here. The Kansas City Barbecue for example. But the rumble of the Tomcats has long been replaced by the grinding of MH-53’s and now the 22-Osprey. (they really do make a racket) But just once in a blue moon, a pair of F/A-18’s will depart on RWY 09 at sunset and climb out over those hills. But they never do that sloppy barrel roll. -
Jamesington,
I’m just 100 miles north of you. Get me up in a ride and I’ll give you my gimbals I removed for my FCC3 or FSSB-R1.
Sorry to disagree with Nutty, (Mr. Foxy), but both FSSB and FCC3 are great force mods. Both work perfectly and similiar in response and accuracy and quality. Differences: while the FSSB had force programmable dip switches and the Fcc3 has pots, I found the customer support and spare parts availability by Vipercore to be far superior.
Case in point:
- my original FCC1 was getting wonky so Vipercore offered to fix it or replace its components with FCC3 ones… Free.
- my FSSB-R1 I bought from a sim shop that went out of business for like 1/2 price. It was new in the box, but was missing the top side mounting plate. Realsim said they couldn’t help me. Not saying they weren’t polite, just they made no spares.
A friend in need is a friend indeed. - Benjamin Franklin.
Basically, support is a key differentiator. -
Just redo the piece. Take the measure and look for the material. Is not imposible.
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You can use a force stick even if you are used to applying a heap of force to the stick… if you down the sensitivity of it to realistic values, you will need to haul on it to make the jet turn anyway.
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Sorry to disagree with Nutty, (Mr. Foxy), but both FSSB and FCC3 are great force mods.
I didn’t comment on the FCC3 because it wasn’t mentioned in the original post buddy, so there’s nothing to disagree with. The point I was making was that a force sensor mod (irrespective of who makes them) is, in my opinion, the best mod to be flying BMS with. The accuracy and control you get over a stick that moves is second to none.
Cheers
James
ps. Somehow my Nutty account no longer displays all the forums, hence this username and account.
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OK, I guess that makes sense from your perspective. It wasn’t like I trying to extract molars or bicuspids without N20. Theres disagree as in not the whole story was told, and then theres DISagree as in youre wrong. Lets go for the first of the two.
So…
My point for the OP and others, so as to not miss by exclusion, is that there’s choice out there for force mods. FSSB often gets used as the generic like KLEENX. BTW, Vipercore is currently developing a WartHog version of the FCC3 also.